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57, 59-61, 63-64, 67, 73-75, 77-78: Remember that #100usefulbeautifuldays #100dayproject that I started over two months ago? My posting may have stalled but the progress has not! 😀Much of my time over the past three weeks has been spent working on our basement. We paid someone to do the actual installation of the tile but somehow it still ended up taking up a lot of my time. Part of that was my ignorance and I’ve learned a lot about grout haze and what it takes to scrub it off. But thankfully, Im almost done with the cleaning and we are getting close to being able to use the whole room. As you can see, the kids have already spread out into the useable space. 😀 The best news though is that my washer and dryer should be in working order by Saturday and I will be able to do laundry at home for the first time since the beginning of May. I hope I never take the luxury of an in-home washer and dryer for granted again.It’s a good thing I didn’t rip out our sugar snap pea plants last week when the weather started to get hot. 😀 Somehow they are soldiering on despite the intense heat! Hooray! 💚 P.S. Did you know that radish bouquets are all the rage in Baltimore? 😂 #salmonandsouvlakigardens #sugarsnappeas #growwhatyoueat #organicgardening“We wish you not to get shoved, instead get love.” Collaborative song writing by Marko and Ellie (rhyming by Marko), orginal choreography by Ellie (shared with permission from the kids) . . . Happy Father’s Day! and especially so much love to our Baba, @nikzb7e plus Grandpa @dalejudge, and a bunch of awesome uncles!! 😍I drove straight from my quilting workshop to Greektown to meet up with the fam for St. Nicholas’s Greek Festival. As always, Yiayia treated us to some delicious food and we had fun watching the dancing and even doing a little dancing ourselves. Opa! 📷: stolen from @nikzb7e, my most favorite Greek. ❤️ #itsgoodtobegreek #greektownbaltimore #baltimore #ilovebaltimore #greekdancingI had a great time today at the @baltimoremqg workshop with @duringquiettime. Amy, thanks for teaching us about improv paper piecing! In the second picture, you can see most of the blocks that people came up with. Using the same process, we ended up with an amazing variety! And the third picture shows you a mock up of what I could make with this block. I’m not showing you the actual thing because it’s a surprise for someone. 😉 #salmonandsouvlakisews #baltimoremqg51-56: In #100usefulbeautifuldays news, look Mom (@priscillaljudge)! My hexie quilt covers my legs now! 😀 Also, thanks to @nikzb7e’s prompting, I replaced our terrible old chipped porcelain mixing bowls with beautiful stainless steel bowls from @crateandbarrel. And finally if you would like the long promised actual tour of the basement, swipe to see two poorly lit videos. Videography is not my speciality! 😉 . . . #laurashexiequilt #salmonandsouvlakisews #100dayproject #mixingbowlselfie #mixingbowlsofinstagram #stainlesssteel #baltimoremqg #eppeverywhere #englishpaperpiecing47-50 (50!!): Today marks the halfway point of my #100usefulbeautifuldays project. I should probably call it my “finish our basement” project but I suppose I am accomplishing a few other things as well. 😉 In honor of making it halfway through, I took you on a tour of the current state of our basement. (That’s really our dehumidifier making all that noise). And swipe to see my #makerstote. It’s finished enough to carry my hand sewing supplies inside of it so that I can finish the outside. 😍 #100dayproject #salmonandsouvlakisews ETA: I forgot that IG only lets you post one minute videos so two minutes of that video got cut off. Tomorrow I’ll figure out how to post the rest of it. 😉39, 41, 46: A girl can’t slave away in the dungeon every day right? So, in other #100usefulbeautifuldays news, I finished the third and final section of my #laurashexiequilt! I am so close to finishing the whole quilt but this project is no longer portable, which means I need to find another hand sewing project. 😀 And, in other news, I’ve added both gussets to my #makerstote and basted in the zipper. I’m getting really close to finishing this too! #100dayproject #salmonandsouvlakisews #noodleheadpatterns #quiltersofinstagram #eppeverywhere #englishpaperpiecing #scrappyquiltsarethebest40, 42-45: The basement. My whole life, consumed. The end. (In case you can’t tell from these pictures, I’ve been scrubbing excess grout off of the tiles in the newly-painted room and then moving all kinds of stuff from the other room into this room so that we can tile the other room. Seriously, it will never end. I have been throwing away all kinds of stuff though. That has been satisfying. The basement is so close to being ready for the next stage and it’s starting to look great. The rest of my house? Totally trashed. 😂 Nik is doing his best to help out but his commute is so much longer now that he’s just not home nearly as much as he used to be. I keep telling myself that this is for a short season and soon the basement will be done and I can focus back on the rest of my house again, which was the original point of this project.) #100usefulbeautifuldays #100dayproject35-38: Dear naive Laura of last Monday morning (May 7th), you sweet little thing, when you filmed that video, you thought you were almost done cleaning. Silly you! That was before you discovered that there was 65 years worth of dirt and construction debris on top of the beams that was going to get dislodged by the ceiling spray painting and so had to be removed although it was totally hidden. And then you figured out that there wasn’t room to get the vacuum cleaner up there, and so you had to scrape it out by hand. So then you worked for hours and hours, including until midnight on the next day and continued to work while the painters were starting in the other room and finally you finished, just in time. And then you started thinking to yourself, “Should I really have started this #100usefulbeautifuldays project? It is CONSUMING my life!” But then you consoled yourself with the thought that you’ll never have to do that cleaning job in your house ever again and would you look at the beautifully painted room, finally functional after 2 years!! Hooray! Well done, Last Week Laura! . . . This skirt is also the only #memade article of clothing I own. It’s a self-drafted elastic waist A-line skirt and I need to make another one. So here’s my one and only entry for #memademay18! 😂 #100dayproject #salmonandsouvlakisews #mmmay18I am grateful for these two precious children who changed me forever when I became their mother. I am so grateful for my own mother, @priscillaljudge, and all the sacrifices that she made for me. I am also feeling the pain of the difficulty of Mother’s Day for those for whom the topic of motherhood is fraught with tension, sadness, and pain. My heart is with you. ❤️30-34: Despite last week being ridiculously jampacked, this #100usefulbeautifuldays project did push me to get some sewing done and I am grateful for that. My #makerstote is getting close to completion and I sewed together my last two hexies for #laurashexiequilt! #salmonandsouvlakisews #100dayprojectCategories
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Monthly Archives: October 2013
Mark Doesn’t Like the Ravens Either (who, by the way, are NOT the world champions)
Mark is in the very fun phase where he’s always shaking his head no (although, obviously, he doesn’t know what he’s saying). For some reason, he only does it when he’s sitting in his chair for meals. I figured I … Continue reading
Heading To New Heights
About a month ago, I walked out of our living room and found this: And yes, I grabbed the camera and took a picture before I moved him to safety. Quick, move the piano bench back over!! As you may … Continue reading
Posted in Mark
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Birthday Dinners (all three of them!)
Ellie, Nik, and I all celebrate our birthdays in a two-week span in late September/early October. Nik and I don’t generally give many (or any) gifts to each other but we do love good food! So our birthday dinners are … Continue reading
Posted in cooking, Ellie
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The Obligatory “Children in a Lot of Pumpkins” Pictures, Because It’s Fall!
(This is the best we got of Ellie by herself – not so into picture taking that night! :)) And a few outtakes: You are actually letting this girl hold me, on a table, with pumpkins?!?!?!?! Whee!!! “I’m trying to … Continue reading
Mark Figures Out How To Climb
(and Mama starts having daily/hourly/minutely heart attacks) because why just climb into the chair if you can also climb higher to get Mama’s book? from 10/9/13
Posted in Mark
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With My Apologies to Anyone Named Mark
For a few months now, I’ve been keeping a list of all the crazy puns I’ve been making just by using Mark’s name. I’ve been cracking myself up (and feeling a bit sorry for Mark and anyone else named Mark.) … Continue reading
Posted in just for fun, Mark
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Mark’s First Foods (A Baby-Led Weaning List)
Several people have asked me recently about what food exactly we feed Mark. I haven’t blogged much (or at all) about Mark starting solid food. I did with Ellie (you can find all those posts here) but somehow, so much … Continue reading
